ASUS MeMO Pad 8 hands-on

Bigger and better than the original MeMO Pad, but will it knock your socks off?

The original ASUS MeMO Pad — an underpowered 7-inch Android tablet with a woefully low-resolution display — didn't do much for us. (That's putting it very nicely.) The new MeMO Pad 8, however — announced this week at IFA in Berlin — is a tablet we'd not be ashamed to carry around.

That's not to say it's perfect. The 8-inch, 1280x800 display still only gives you about 188 pixels per inch — and you will notice, especially if you're used to something like the new Nexus 7, with its 323 pixels per inch. But it's better.

The quad-core processor and 1GB is a big improvement as well, keeping the user interface humming along, but it wouldn't win any specs races, we fear. Again, we'll want to wait for some more quality time before declaring the internals a winner, but it's certainly improved over the original MeMO Pad.

The overall feel of the tablet, though, is great. We played with two colors — a glossy white, and matte black — and there will be a pink version available as well. We'd daresay the glossy white was more appealing, but different strokes to different folks and all that. It shows fingerprints, but it also looks a little more exciting. The exposed microSD card slot, though, does take away from the design a tad, breaking up the lines a bit.

ASUS continues with its custom UI, tweaking things without going overboard. Its custom quick-app launcher remains as stylish and useful as ever.

Other items of note:

You'll be able to get the MeMO Pad 8 with 16GB on on-board storage (minus the OS).

You've got a 5MP camera out back, and 1.2MP out front.

There's a 3950 mAh battery, which ASUS says will get you 9 hours of continuous use.

There also will be an optional case that'll protect both the tablet and the display.

Asus Memo Pad HD7 has a 1.2ghz quad core processor vs. the Memopad 8's 1.6 quad core. Also the 1 inch size difference may be very noticeable for some. They both though have 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage so performance may feel the same. I would expect it to come in at $199.00 based on the Memo pad HD7's price of $149.00.

Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by the Android Open Source Project
and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License. AndroidCentral is an independent site
that is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.